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- On late Friday, the Geithner banking rescue plan was leaked, leading to a flurry of weekend criticism, some of which Tim captures here. The plan was officially unveiled today, with Geithner himself penning an explanation/defense in The Wall Street Journal. Overall, though, the response has been mostly negative but among the more disinterested optimists are Brad DeLong, whose useful FAQ may or may not get the pricing issue correct. It could be that the failure of the Geithner plan leads to nationalization, but I'd concur with Kevin Drum that nationalization would introduce political problems that would be present regardless whether we pushed for it initially or if we did so down the road.
- Appearing last night on 60 Minutes, President Obama sharply criticized former vice president Dick Cheney for promoting policies that have done less to protect us from terrorist threats than they have to radicalize and recruit more potential terrorists. Interestingly, as Greg Sargent points out, it really does appear that the president all but directly accused Cheney of authorizing torture, which opens the door a bit more towards his administration bearing a responsibility to investigate illegalities committed by senior members of the Bush administration. Indeed, this Newsweek story on the administration's moves to declassify and make public three of the Bush-era "torture memos," describing in detail these interrogation techniques, appears to be setting up a situation where the evidence overwhelms Obama's desire to "move forward, not look back." Then again, Obama's "flexible" attitude toward the rule of law threatens the chances of a comprehensive investigation into the Bush administration's crimes.
- It would seem that an EFCA "compromise" is in the works, although I've rarely seen it referred to without the scare quotes. Indeed, the proposal being pushed by Costco, Starbucks and Whole Foods would scrap EFCA and instead require a 70-vote supermajority to form a union. The good news is that Hill Democrats aren't particularly interested in softer labor legislation. Meanwhile, The Washington Post and Associated Press are doing some top-shelf lazy labor reporting.
- You might recall that last month George Will recycled one of his old columns which was full of easily refutable errors about climate change and The Washington Post ultimately decided that maintaining an alternate universe in which Will's truthiness reigns supreme was more important than reaffirming truth based on fact. The Post has now issued probably the closest we'll ever get to a correction in the form of a polite but firm Chris Mooney column that puts Will's fantasyland in its place. Oh, and an international organization of professional meteorologists has an equally polite and definitive takedown as well. It's great to see this fact-checking being done but it doesn't alter the reality that The Post's editors are still in denial about the paper's disturbing forays into epistemological relativism.
- It seems like ages since we've seen a Republican publicly criticize Rush Limbaugh only to supplicate himself before Mr. Excellence in Broadcasting mere days later. But now it seems Jim Tedisco, running in a close special election race to grab Kirsten Gillibrand's NY-20 seat, has become the latest to undergo the ritual embarrassment.
- I think the greatest appeal of the "Obama is turning us into a banana republic" argument for conservatives is that it lets them conflate their desire to portray Obama as incompetent with their desire to portray him as a tyrant. And I'll be honest: if I were an unscrupulous conservative, I'd find this argument too convenient to pass up, either.
- While I'm all for having a critical voice like Howard Dean on CNBC, I'm not sure what in Dean's background makes him a good choice to provide financial analysis. Then again, everyone else at CNBC does have relevant experience in finance and still gives out bad advice, so it's probably best to simply evaluate Dr. Dean on the merits of what he says. I also like how Jason Zengerle ties Dean's dismissal of the "great man" theory of history to the dominance of Randian hyper-individualism on display at the network.
- Weekend Remainders: Steele outraises Kaine; Schumer comes out in favor of same-sex marriage; Democrats shift their feet on executive oversight; John Yoo's employer mulls punishment; a glimpse at the future of lobbyist reform; recession charts tell different stories; and why Obama should end the White House press briefing.
--Mori Dinauer
